


Replay

by Alona



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 16:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alona/pseuds/Alona
Summary: "So – is this a dream?""No. And you know how I know that?"





	Replay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PhoenixFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/gifts).



"So – is this a dream?"

"No. And you know how I know that?"

Arthur waited, eyebrows raised. 

Saito said, "In a dream, you would be wearing a more expensive suit."

"That's very funny."

"I thought so," Saito agreed, comfortably. "Also, I have been paying attention. I remember how we got here." 

"Remind me?" 

"I was accompanying you on your… fact-finding expedition, did you call it? We took my private plane. An unseasonable storm caused air traffic control to ground us. And here we are."

Arthur nodded. The unseasonable storm was still pelting the windows, and the night sky was more bright than dark from the clusters of lightning. "You skipped a step."

"Is this the step where you dared me to find a restaurant expensive enough to take you to dinner?"

"I wouldn't call it a dare." 

It might have been a dare, at that, but it was more fun to bicker about it while sipping at obscenely expensive whisky than to admit it. Arthur had a pleasing suspicion that the restaurant was entirely pedestrian to Saito. He'd met vanishingly few men who carried so much wealth with so little self-consciousness. 

"So why were you set on going, anyway?" he asked when the bickering was past and they were well into a light meal that under less opulent circumstances might have been called supper. They were alone in the restaurant, except for the spotlessly self-effacing waiter, who stood at a polite distance just out of earshot. 

"I am interested in your work," Saito said. 

"Mine specifically?"

"All of you. I like to have the human touch with my employees. Call it… an eccentricity of the rich." 

"And the thrill of adventure has nothing to do with it. That's why you personally rescued Cobb from the middle of a car chase?"

Saito shrugged. "You can think whatever you like." 

"I think the weather's letting up," Arthur said. 

"Just in time. This date was starting to bore me." 

He waited for Arthur to react, but there wasn't even a flicker. Saito dismissed him – and it was very much a dismissal – to see to the plane. This time there was a reaction: just a moment's glance backwards, a sardonic hint of a bow. 

When the waiter asked – in Japanese, which was unexpected – how the meal had been, Saito expressed his total satisfaction. 

 

"So," Arthur said. 

"Of course this is a dream," Saito said, in response to a question that hadn't been asked. 

The setting was almost right: empty restaurant, stormy night. The waiter was different, and the food.

"The suit?"

"I paid you enough for the Fischer job to afford a suit like that, no?" Saito didn't wait for an answer. "My next question is: why are we doing this?" 

"As I'm sure you can understand, I find myself at a loss. From our previous encounters, I thought you might have another position lined up for me," Arthur said. It sounded like, and was, a canned response. 

"That's very funny," Saito said. 

Arthur bowed his head, acknowledging the point. "This seemed like an ideal setting to raise the subject. How about it?" 

"You do not think perhaps I have gone through enough to cure me of going after… thrills?"

"Not really, no." 

Saito laughed. "You are very confident. That's good. I think we will be able to arrange something. How long do we have?" 

"Another half hour, at least."

"Then let us discuss terms."


End file.
